Kuranui College has recorded its biggest increase in Year 9 student enrolments for over a decade.

Assistant Principal responsible for the Junior School, William Donaldson, believes the 38% increase for 2020 is the result of several key factors, including the college’s innovative Ignite Curriculum.

“The whole premise around the new curriculum is about igniting student’s passions and feedback says that parents like it because of the cross-curricular teaching,” he explained.

Year 9 and 10 students study together, choosing five courses per semester, and with two semesters each year, students will get to study 20 courses by the end of Year 10. “We don’t mandate that students have to choose one course from English, one from Mathematics and one from Science, instead we recommend that they have a broad choice of courses because it gives them a good grounding.

“They are still able to capture the key content of the New Zealand Curriculum going into the Senior School, but we want them to try out things that they really enjoy, and we also want them to look at choosing things that they may never have heard of or considered before.

“For example, ‘Forensic Science’ is proving very popular as a lot of kids enjoy the who’s done it ‘CSi-type’ situation. It covers all three sciences and students learn about basic lab techniques and protocol. Then there’s ‘Forces of Life’, which is primarily based on physics, but students discover all about how the body works and its motion within a sporting context.

“Although we’re not mandating that they have to follow a traditional curriculum, students are still gaining the key competencies and achievement objectives from the New Zealand Curriculum, across whatever they choose to study,” he said.

Donaldson credits the new curriculum for a settled pastoral environment within the school, and especially the lower levels of truancy and wagging in class, as well as less swapping between courses. “The student engagement factor is high because the students get to make the choice.

“With choice, you know your class numbers, for example there are some faculties that have really popular courses such as ‘Baking Essentials’ in Technology, and P.E and Arts have some courses that have become hugely popular, and then there are some that are perhaps more specialised and attract smaller numbers, so that prompts the teachers and the head of faculties to ask whether we should offer courses in alternate years.

“For example, the English faculty provides a course called ‘Survivor’ one year, which is about literature of survival and people facing adversity, and then the next year they do ‘The Sports’ Page’, so that the literature focus is on sporting stars or narratives around sports, this means that students who are sporty or enjoy adventure-based learning can experience literacy twice through two different contexts, adversity and resilience, and through sport, which has been really good. And of course, we’re also igniting the teacher’s own passions.”

Head Girl Amelia O'Connell welcomes new Year 9 pupils

Another reason for the increased roll is the ‘local’ factor, with many more students now choosing to remain in the South Wairarapa for their college education. “We’re recapturing students who would have traditionally left us and gone from South Wairarapa to schools out of the area. Students who may have travelled elsewhere, but they live in Greytown, Featherston or Martinborough and have decided to stay local for their choice of college,” said Donaldson

Donaldson also believes that the commitment made by Kuranui’s Principal, Simon Fuller, to visit every single one of the contributing schools with student leaders who originated from those schools, has proved to be extremely important in establishing Kuranui as the college of choice.

“It shows there is community connection and involvement. It also lets the primary school kids hear from the Kuranui students themselves about all these amazing opportunities you can do at our school,” added Donaldson.

Annual Year 9 BBQ 2020

Written by Catherine Rossiter-Stead. Article added: Tuesday 17 March 2020